In April I had the chance to visit Stewart island with 4 mates. For all of us it was our first attempt to hunt there. We got one of the west coast blocks. To be fair before hand I had the attitude that I was not that excited about hunting these deer, but it was another hunting experience to tick off.
Once I got there, that changed pretty quick and I loved the experience in total. It surely is a unique place to hunt!
The flight in was awesome! And to be hunting each day in such rugged beauty was inspiring.
The first deer came pretty easy, and with 4 of the five scoring within the first 24 hours, we had meat enough for the 10 days. After that it was more about looking for a buck or just plain exploring and taking photos.
30 odd deer seen, and 8 whitetail and a red shot. Ill let the pics tell the story.

Nice to see the rest of your pics! That had to be a great trip! Thanks for sharing Craig!

Z

Cheers Z. beleive it or not I only just remembered to download the last of them off my camera this morning.

Great photos, sounds like you had a great trip.

Yep, something a bit different than my usual mountain goat stuff.

Great report Shanks. I enjoyed the read, and pics.
Did you lose any days due to weather ?
I've never hunted Stewart Island but have spent a little time hunting Whitetail of the Whakatipu herd. Challenging hunting and terrain but highly enjoyable. Many times planned to return but so far hasn't panned out. What do you think of Whitetail venison ?

We had a hell of a lot of wind and a bit of rain, but nothing that really stopped us, and the bush is so tight, once you got away from the beach the wind wasn't much of an issue.
Our biggest problem was we were not told that the beach we were dropped on, was only usable on a east or north wind and below about 10 knots.
So it looked like we were not going to get picked up anytime soon. Also we were given a UHF radio to contact pilots, but no one could tell us where you could get a signal from. hence the photo of my mate up the tree. We were on top of highest hill and could only hear them saying, you need to get higher!
Finally one of the guys tramped over into next catchment and we could talk with them from there.
If I did it again, Id fly in, but then be prepared to tramp out to a better beach or to the ferry at freshwater landing.
Which we nearly had to do anyway.
The venison was some of the best Ive eaten!

Nice trip,

Very interesting terrain to hunt whitetails in.

Cheers Thunderhead.

One funny little story from the trip- there are a heap of wild cats on the island- One of the guys was lining up on his first ever whitetail, and this big cat walks out behind it. Boom! and too our surprise he shot the cat instead.
later we caught another one in a trap we set for them. Trouble is our hut was a popular stop in for trampers. We went out to dispatch it and were trying to do so while no one was around- because trampers dont tend to understand that type of thing. Just lining up to shoot it, and from behind us this voice says "oh, hello." Jeez we jumped, and must have looked pretty guilty or something. then the hut erupts with laughter.One of the guys had crept out the door and raced around to the walking track just to do that to us.